Last week, Ronda Rousey stunned fans when she made her unannounced return to professional wrestling at an independent event. Rousey competed in the main event of Lucha LaVoom Area 51 alongside close friend Marina Shafir against Brian Kendrick and Taya Valkyrie, ultimately picking up the win for her team after submitting Kendrick with an ankle lock. This was her first wrestling match since losing to Shayna Baszler at WWE SummerSlam which also marked the end of her second full-time run with the company.
Even more surprising was the announcement days later that the multi-time WWE Women’s Champion would compete on the independents again, this time for The Wrestling Revolver in their debut event in Los Angeles. It was later confirmed that Rousey would once again team with Shafir and now their opponents, who are both signed to full-time contracts with AEW, have been revealed.
In a post to X last night, the promotion announced that Rousey and Shafir will face the team of ROH Women’s World Champion Athena and Billie Starkz at The Wrestling Revolver Unreal on November 16th. While Rousey and Athena teamed up several times back in 2018 across episodes of Raw and WWE Live events, this will be the very first time the two have faced each other.
Shafir, meanwhile, has had previous experience with both her future opponents. This past January, she unsuccessfully challenged Athena for the ROH Women’s World Championship on an episode of AEW Dark and also faced her once in WWE. Almost three years ago, the then-Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart defeated Shafir and Zoey Stark in the first round of the 2021 Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic on an episode of 205 Live. Shafir has also faced Starkz twice, both times in The Wrestling Revolver itself, and the two’s record currently stands at one win each.